A gentleman came to have morning
coffee with me and appealed for my support of small Midwestern
farmers who were going bankrupt. He gave a romantic description of a
stalwart breed being forced to relinquish centuries of precious
frontier and pioneer traditions. "Aren't they fundamental for a
healthy planet and a healthy society?" he challenged.

I had to wonder out loud whether
these were the same people for whom the millions of buffalo were
slaughtered to create farmland; the ones for whom pesticides and
insecticide were developed to increase profit; the ones who lobby to
poison coyotes to protect their farm animals; the ones who fund the
most powerful lobby in the world to give them billions of dollars in
subsidies of all sorts, from power and irrigation to outright cash;
who are the backbone of the National Rifle Association; and who make
sure that U.S. foreign aid can't be used to help increase farm output
in third-world nations.

This conflict might seem to be
merely a political debate, but of course it isn't. There are two ways
to look at the situation. My coffee guest was talking about
individuals, while I am describing those same people in their
collective form.

Philosophy Generates Myths, Which Generate
Metaphors

The real differences among people
of good will are usually based on the metaphors we use, such as the
family farm. These metaphors in turn are based on myths (such as
bountiful nature given by God), which in turn are based on
large-scale philosophies (nature has laws).

Our contemporary American
philosophy is commonly associated with Hobbes, Locke, Adam Smith, and
Darwin, with a touch of Thoreau. Generally we view nature as coldly
indifferent (storms), anarchistic (as in the word wild) and sometimes
malevolent (mountain lions), but also a source of boundless wealth at
the service of white homo-sapiens.

With our national philosophy of
boundless wealth, the ecological senario of planetary destruction
doesn't seem amenable to an effective American debate.

Two
No-Win Arguments

Environmentalists can't win
because they don't know what they want. Their two main lines of
reasoning&emdash;that we have scarce resources and that some methods
of energy have cumulatively harmful by-products&emdash;are logically
indefensible positions within the American mythology.

Scarce Resources: Arguments
predicated on scarce resources as a justification for conservation,
recycling, and reclamation play right into the hands of the myth of
science, which offers cheap energy as a Holy Grail. Science these
days is taking on a more sacred mantle; in the past, it only strove
to heal the sick and redeem the poor. Now it promises to save the
planet.

Harmful By-Products: The "harmful
by-products will destroy the planet" argument is not only rebutted by
the promise of future science, but it operates differently in
case-by-case battles over details. A good example is the idea of
using nuclear power to offset the greenhouse effects of CO2.
Generally, the harmful by-product argument is premised on science
itself, which makes it particularly vulnerable to embarrassing
mistakes and controversial new findings.

A New
Way of Looking

If there are to be sound
ecological solutions, they must not be derived from the systems of
thought that have created our current situation: science,
Christianity, and progress, the foundation stones of our current
Western edifice. The question in my mind is whether it is possible to
find a view of nature that is not derived from these existing
philosophies.

Nearly all current (and former)
philosophic schools have defined the state of nature based on their
own unique viewpoints. The elements of the environment are included
in each philosophic system. For Platonists, nature has a priori
qualities that include revealed truth; for Zoroastrians, it has a
timeless repetition.

Unfortunately, from our current
perspective that there is no God, it becomes evident that such
thought systems, and consequently their deriviative states of nature,
are only projections of human values. Therefore, following any
intelligent set of practices derived from higher systems of
philosophic thought will lead in the unwitting direction of executing
the frail human values that underly those sets.

The alternative course I suggest
is to select a philosophy that was derived from the rudimentary
observations of nature. There are several such observation-based
views, all orginating in pre-historical times. The one I picked was
written down 2,200 years ago in China, at which time it was
supposedly 20,000 years old. It is called the I Ching.

An
Observation-Based Philosophy

The questions I choose to ask of
this philosophy, to see whether it could be applicable today, were
these: What approach to nature does it take? What observations need
to be added to the original database as a result of contemporary
experience, and how might we modify the former to include the
latter?

The Approach to Nature: The I
Ching consists of eight primary symbols called trigrams, each made up
of three lines. The lines may be broken or unbroken. They are each
associated with an early Chinese character that probably had a clear
meaning at the time of the transition from oral to written tradition.

The I Ching was used for
divination purposes, and the eight primary symbols were laid out in
an 8 x 8 matrix of 64 symbols, each with a descriptive character.
These 64 symbols in turn were each given countless added
interpretations over many centuries of use.

The I Ching views the natural
world as unknowable, and with no definable qualities; nature is seen
as being best approached with unique behavior in each specific
instance.

These seem like very wise ways to
define nature: unknowable, undefinable, and infinitely varied. Nature
is the flowing river that we step into, and which is never the same.
A true relativist philosphy, indeed.

The I Ching view doesn't have much
room for science as we know it; an offer to appease the gods doesn't
make make much sense in our world today. Such an offer might have
been suggested in the ancient I Ching. The I Ching thus seems quite
foreign to our present-day systems of human values.

The I Ching, as I read it, assumes
that humans only have two dimensions for interacting with nature plus
two ways of interacting with other humans.

In interacting with nature, we
have the choice of the time dimension or the space dimension. These
are the key man-nature interactions in the 8 primary trigrams.
Interactions occur at a particular point in time and in a particular
space.Time refers to when a human can interact with nature; it is an
infinite line from now, to soon, to someday, to never. Space is also
a continuum from here to there to everywhere. Everywhere once
referred only to the earth, while now it includes the cosmos.

Are there some other dimensions
that the I Ching ignores? Yes, there are countless such dimensions,
ranging from those we can clearly recognize in nature, such as color,
smell, and temperature, to those that are not so evident: willpower,
memory, and intellect. But none of these are so clearly evident,
fundamental, and unambiguous as time and space.

As for human interaction, the I
Ching seems to settle on a spectrum that ranges from not acting and
being alone, to acting and communicating with others. While there are
obviously a wide range of other human interactive conditions, ranging
from jumping, praying and being sad to killing, crying and voting,
the I Ching seems to have settled on these two for the same reason it
settled on the two dimensions of interactions with nature: they are
simple, understandable and seemingly universal.

When we put these four
dimensions&emdash;time, space, action, and communication&emdash;
together, we get the eight trigrams, the eight major human options in
living.

The first four trigrams deal with
not acting or pre-action, the second four with action. Therefore, the
first set of four has two for not acting in time and two for not
acting in space.

The first trigram for not acting
in time is called (1)*
Creative-Heaven and represents pure thought; it probably implies
quiet meditation. The second trigram, for not acting in space, is
called (2) Receptive-Earth and represents physical stillness
(perfectly grounded being). The third trigram is no action in time
again, and is called (29) Reason-Mastery. It refers to an awareness
of time flowing and would be called by us contemplation and planning;
it might also allow for some form of talking to others. The fourth
trigram is again no action in space and is called (30) Clarity. It
means not moving, or continuing to do whatever you are doing but
displaying wisdom and showing good behavior by example.

*
Trigram
numbers ( ) are included in this article for contemporary I Ching
students to compare their views to mine.

The I Ching, because it is a
philosophy that only observes nature and predicates no elevated
descriptive characteristics about nature, is an ecologically sound
guide to human action. Traditionally, a person uses it when
confronted with a decision. A trigram is selected at random and its
meaning is applied to the particular situation confronted.

Since the first four out of eight
trigrams are based on no action, therefore half of all consultations
to the I Ching will result in no action. This would certainly be
beneficial for the environment if it were widely pursued. At most,
the symbols based on the first four trigrams in I Ching advise no
more than planning, self-discipline and talking to others close
by.

The second four primary trigrams
allow action. The first in the second set of trigrams is related to
time and is called (51) Arousing-Thunder and refers to tentative
action, with great sensitivity to responses around you and prompt
feedback.

The second trigram denotes action
in space and is called (52) Stillness-Mountain. It refers to taking
very tentative actions and calls for gentle, precise movement in a
small area. The third trigram is action in time again, and is called
(57) Penetrating-Wind; it refers to action that involves
perseverance, gentleness, and flexibility. It also includes the
long-term education of other people.

The fourth and last of the eight
trigrams is action in space and is called (58) Joy. It refers to the
physical yielding of space but with widespread distribution of small
measures and sometimes the inclusion of many people.

When looked at as a whole these
eight trigrams passed down over the millenia are a prescription for
dealing with nature and our fellow human beings.

All of this is good advice anytime
and anywhere and is good for the environment, especially when the
implicit elements include gaining consensus among one's peers before
acting with physical lightness.

Updating the I Ching: What can be
added? Nothing can be added to the eight primary trigrams. Only to
the other 56 trigrams and the supplementary commentaries on the
primary eight (technically called "the changing lines") could
contemporary material be added.

I would suggest two experiences
that we humans have encountered in the past two millenia that should
be added to the I Ching. Both are relevent to ecology.

The first is that large-scale
actions can have adverse effects, such as using up trillions of
barrels or oil, cutting down billions of trees, or killing millions
of whales. Such scale was not as significant an issue when the I
Ching was created. Needless to say it a central issue in the ecology
of the planet in this century.

The second is that the intensity
of many human creations can be harmful; examples include DDT, lead,
mercury, plutonium, and finally chlorine-based pesticides. These
strange products are all compounded in factories that turn out only a
few thousand tons of material a year and are applied in minute
quantities to the ground, yet they can be found in groundwater
thousands of feet deep and under the Arctic Ice thousands of miles
away.

Scale and intensity are distinct
threats to the environment, yet they are hard to determine as they
concern the production of materials that are integral to all of our
day-to-day activities. Starting a lumber business isn't in itself
harmful, but when the lumber company cuts trees on a giant scale, the
results are horrendous. Similarly, finding a simple method for
extracting and concentrating a mineral to treat tooth decay could be
trivial, but when the concentrated mineral is used in the wrong
environment it might kill all microbial life under water.

I Ching advice must offer caution
and restraint about scale and intensity in all of its advice that
involves action. That means adding a new line to 32 trigrams. Such a
line should alternate in its caution, sometimes cautioning about
scale and sometimes about intensity. Such cautions should also be
varied in their wording.

The following are some suggested
lines to add:

¥ Consider the effect
if millions do what you do.

¥ What will happen to a
fish in the sea and the butterfly

a thousand miles
away?

¥ Include future
generations in your action.

¥ A small cup can
poison a great well.

¥ The ghosts of 10
million buffalo are watching you.

¥ One more straw can
make a load too heavy.

These examples are meant to
suggest that scale and intensity considerations are easy to
understand but need to be considered at every juncture of life before
action is taken.

Summary

The I Ching is a brilliant tool
for creating a meaningful environmental milieu because it truly is
based on human wisdom as applied to the state of nature. If we can
bring it into our daily lives, we can certainly benefit our
ecology.

Insofar as it is a document that
reflects mature wisdom several millenia old, it needs to be updated
to include the harmful effects we have experienced in the past
century. Our experience has taught us that humans can do too much and
reach too far, and in their fullness can damage more than has ever
been damaged.